


Hidden In Plain Sight

by Gloomier



Category: Naruto
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, Humor, Incorrect Vampire Myths, Kakashi is an idiot, Light Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mention of blood, Minor Injuries, Not Canon Compliant, Smut, Tenzo is a good friend, Transformation, Vampire Umino Iruka, well sort of major I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-01-13 03:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloomier/pseuds/Gloomier
Summary: It's not every day you find out your assistant is a Vampire. Kakashi really should avoid pissing his off...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you notice there's a dearth of fic in things you're really interested in. The lack of Vampire Iruka content is quite appalling so I am here in an attempt to remedy that. Also, a bonus because this fits right in with the spooky season!
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this silly vampire Iruka Fic!
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://tea-blitz.tumblr.com/)

When the fourth shinobi war officially came to an end, a blanket of relief settled itself comfortably across the inhabitants of the world. The long-desired peace that so many had fought tooth and nail for, though incredibly hard-won, had finally come. In the wake of that peace, rebuilding had begun, people picked up their lives again, and time marched on.

After months of hard work seeing to Konoha’s restoration and dealing with the aftermath of the horror of war, it was finally time for Tsunade to pass on the responsibilities of Hokage.

“Here,” Tsunade said, shoving a book into Kakashi’s chest. Kakashi reflexively raised his hands to keep the book from falling as Tsunade retracted her hand.

Kakashi looked down at it. It seemed to be a journal; the leather it was bound in had softened with age, but overall remained in perfectly good shape. It had also been sealed shut.

“I don’t understand,” Kakashi replied, looking back up at Tsunade expectantly.

“It’s the Hokage’s book of secrets.”

_ Now hold on a second… _

“Isn’t it dangerous for such a thing to even exist?” Kakashi asked in mild disbelief. 

In the shinobi world, sources of information could be varying degrees of dangerous. The higher up the chain of command you got, the more dangerous information became. The leader of a hidden village having a diary dedicated to secrets was as dangerous as it got. These were state secrets… And Tsunade handed him something that should be destroyed or, at the very least, hidden in a place where it could never, ever be found.

Yet, it was here in his hands.

Tsunade rolled her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, Brat, but as long as you key your chakra to it, it’ll be safe. It was a gift from Uzumaki Mito to my grandfather. There is no safer book in the entire world.”

Kakashi looked at her with what he hoped was an incredibly skeptical look.

Nothing in the ninja world was ever truly safe, but Kakashi supposed that if _ Uzumaki Mito_—a highly regarded and incredibly powerful fūinjutsu master—created this, then perhaps there was a small chance it would be okay.

“If you say so.” 

Tsunade quirked her brow, looking between him and the book in his hands.

Kakashi sighed and built up some chakra in his hands, then pushed it through into the book, which momentarily glowed blue before fading away.

“Fantastic!” Tsunade grinned, “One last thing: your new assistant will begin work tomorrow. Shizune, give Kakashi the file,” she ordered, snapping her fingers impatiently.

“Here you go, Kakashi-sama,” Shizune said as she stepped forward, holding out the file in question toward Kakashi.

Kakashi took it, shoved the journal under his arm and flipped open the file.

His eyebrows disappeared up beneath his hitai-ate. “Umino Iruka? He’s a chuunin. The assistant to the Hokage can only be a jounin.”

“He is. His file won’t be updated until the end of the week, but his rank was elevated a couple of days ago.” Shizune explained.

Well, _ that _was unexpected.

Umino Iruka was a career chuunin who enjoyed teaching. Kakashi didn’t think Iruka wanted to rank up—and Kakashi knew that Iruka could easily qualify for tokubetsu if he wanted; jounin though was a little baffling—as that meant he would not be allowed to keep teaching at the academy. He was a little surprised that Iruka had even agreed to be his assistant. Kakashi considered Iruka and him to be friends, and not once did the man think to confide in him about this.

“Maa, do you have any more surprises for me, Tsunade?” Kakashi asked a little petulantly, dropping the honorific for good measure.

“No more surprises,” she promised, “But I do have one last thing to say before I leave.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“You’ll do a good job, kid,” Tsunade said, offering him a genuine smile this time.

Although Kakashi wasn’t looking forward to being Hokage, he was going to do his damndest to live up to those that had come before him. For all his flaws, it was nice to know that the former-Hokage, and one of the last living Sanin, believed in him.

*

Kakashi pulled the top drawer of his desk out, grumbling under his breath about his Icha Icha novels disappearing from his pockets every other day. He had to take measures to hide extra copies around the tower just so he could read them when he finally managed to get twenty minutes to himself.

He could have sworn he hid a copy of Icha Icha Violence in his desk...

Kakashi dug through the drawer, pulling out little containers of ink and a handful of calligraphy brushes. There was an empty sake bottle under some receipts in the back corner. He really should have cleaned it out but—_priorities. _

He reached further into the drawer—a little surprised at how much room the cubbies had—and his fingers brushed a book.

“Success,” Kakashi quietly congratulated himself and pulled the book out. “And—you’re not what I was looking for at all.”

Kakashi frowned down at the worn leather-bound book in his hand, extremely dismayed by its rediscovery.

He took Tsunade’s word on the protections the book had and tossed it in the desk after their parting conversation without a second thought, then forgot about it. That was about a month ago. It had turned out that Tsunade had been right about the seals too. Barely a week after shoving the book in the desk, some dumbass tried their luck rifling through it and got electrocuted for the effort. Ibiki laughed for a good five minutes and Kakashi had been mildly concerned for the man.

Well, it wasn’t the book he was looking for, but really—beggars and choosers and all that. Kakashi just needed something to read and he supposed this was as good a book as any.

He shoved all the stuff he pulled out back into the drawer, slipped the book into the inner pocket of his flak vest, and left the office.

It was probably a terrible idea reading a journal of secrets in public, but he hardly cared. The little hole in the wall eatery he ate at when he didn’t feel like cooking for just himself was empty enough as it was, especially after eight o’clock. His little, darkened spot in the corner of the dining room would suffice.

As he picked spicy Lightning Country style meatballs out of his teeth and finished his sake, Kakashi pulled the journal out of his vest and opened it for the first time since Tsunade handed it over to him.

Kakashi barely skimmed the entries from the first and second Hokage’s. He was vaguely interested in what his predecessors had to say on matters of the village’s past, but was far more interested in what Hiruzen and Tsunade had to say about the village’s more recent history. The history he had lived, anyway.

When he got to the pages where Hiruzen had begun writing, things got a little more interesting.

There were several entries about Hiruzen’s worries over the third shinobi war. The few entries about his father were difficult to read, but having got the chance to speak with the man while he was dead for a short time had helped to soothe that hurt. There were several entries from Minato too, mainly seals he’d been creating to help with the Nine-Tails. The sealing work alone had been inspired, and if he hadn’t had to resort to the Reaper Death Seal…

Kakashi skipped ahead and found himself on the entries concerning the Uchiha coup, Shisui’s suicide, and the Uchiha massacre. Those were especially soul-crushing for Kakashi, even after Obito had spilled the beans. The entries explained Itachi’s behavior back then, and Kakashi regretted not pushing his former kohai to let him help. It made him infinitely more angry at Danzo for pushing such brutal extermination.

There were entries about Naruto, and the decision to keep the knowledge of Minato’s son being a Jinchuuriki hidden. Naruto’s first caretaker had leaked what the kid was to a friend, even though Hiruzen declared the knowledge as top secret (harsh punishments included). Kakashi had always wondered how a secret like that had gotten out.

“What?” Kakashi asked flatly as he skimmed over the next entry ten times within thirty seconds. 

> **_October 17_**
> 
> _ It was a chilly and rainy day. I’d been walking through the village, seeing for myself the rebuilding efforts that were underway. It’s good for people to see their leader among them after such an ordeal, but it was also good for me to see that the village had endured. I still have my suspicions about it, but there is no evidence other than a single eyewitness account mentioning a person sitting atop the Nine-Tails’ head. _
> 
> _ None of that hardly matters now. This evening, on my way back to the residence, I found a child. He was holed up in one of the demolished buildings in the South-Eastern residential cluster eating rodents. It’s been a week since the attack, shelters have been set up and people were being taken care of, yet this one child had been overlooked. _
> 
> _ His name is Umino Iruka, and his parents are dead. The boy’s mother, Kohari, was ANBU and she often talked about her son. I never met him before now. _
> 
> _ I asked him why he was there, in a broken home eating animals. _
> 
> _ He had been refusing to look up at me the entire conversation, and I realized why when he did finally look up at me. His eyes glowed, reflecting the dim evening light as a cat or dog’s eyes would. It was baffling, I’ve never seen such a thing before. And then he told me “I don’t eat regular people food”. _
> 
> _ After some careful questioning, alone, I have determined that young Iruka was not eating rats—he was consuming their blood. _
> 
> _ It’s long been said that there is always some truth in myths and legends. Only I did not think to stumble upon such a thing myself. _
> 
> _ Umino Iruka is a vampire. _

The subsequent entries talked sparingly about Iruka and his apparent vampirism.

It was a lot to take in and there were only four mentions of him in total. First contact, Hiruzen trying to figure out a discreet way to feed Iruka without anyone finding out, Iruka using his abilities (that Hiruzen made no notes of) to cause trouble, and Iruka’s insistence to stay chuunin to keep himself under the radar.

Kakashi’s first reaction was to flip out, go back to the office and pace a hole into the floor, order round-the-clock ANBU surveillance on Iruka. It took a good minute for the rest of Kakashi’s brain to catch up with him.

No.

That would be an incredibly stupid chain of events that Kakashi would swiftly come to regret. People would start asking questions. More importantly, Kakashi couldn’t accurately play out these scenarios, couldn’t know Iruka’s reactions. Iruka’s secret had been kept for all these years—Sandaime trusted him; there have been no strange deaths or disappearances; Iruka had been and still was nothing short of a model citizen and an excellent teacher. 

It was clear to him that Tsunade not only had known about Iruka but had trusted him too. Trusted Iruka enough to convince him to not only become jounin but also to be Kakashi’s assistant.

He supposed the best way to handle this was to confront Iruka, _ gently, _ about his discovery.

Kakashi went home that night completely at a loss at how to do that without pissing Iruka off.

*

By the time morning came, Kakashi had about three hours of sleep and zero ideas about how to handle Iruka. He drank four cups of coffee and went to the office an hour and a half earlier than he usually did (which was before most of the staff usually arrived).

Kakashi swiveled slowly in his chair, side to side. His elbows were perched on the chair’s armrests with his hands pressed together and resting against his chin as he continued to think.

He noted the shift swap of his ANBU guard around seven-thirty, Tenzo and Sai relieving both the recruit, Murata, and Yugao from night shift.

Iruka walked through the office door at eight o’clock sharp, his arms carrying this morning's work.

“Good morning, Kakashi-sama,” Iruka greeted him with a big smile.

Kakashi’s eyes shifted from staring at the top of his desk to Iruka’s face. His eyes followed Iruka as he walked up to his desk and laid out the folders and papers in his arms, tidying them up into neat little piles: internal affairs, diplomatic letters, and S-Class mission status updates and mission reports.

As Iruka fiddled with the paperwork, Kakashi mused about how Iruka got his scar. If it was before or after Iruka became a vampire…

“I was just informed that there’s a council meeting at ten, the main topic on the agenda is compensation to the families who lost loved ones leading up to and during the last great conflict,” Iruka said, looking through his planner.

Kakashi hummed noncommittally as he watched Iruka’s mouth move, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s teeth. They all looked normal, no sharp fangs so far as he could see.

“You also have a meeting with the academy Headmaster over the adjusted school budget—Kakashi are you even listening to me?” Iruka asked tersely.

Instead of answering Iruka’s question, Kakashi made a quick gesture with his right hand and dismissed his guard. Sai left immediately, but Tenzo lingered for an extra second before leaving Kakashi and Iruka alone.

Iruka gave him a funny look, and then Kakashi asked a question of his own.

"How is it that you can walk around in the daylight, and yet aren't a pile of dust?" he asked in the most bored tone he could manage.

Iruka inhaled sharply and he tensed. His expression was a mixture of multiple emotions, and Kakashi could only really pick out the panic and resignation. Iruka knew that he had found out, and he was panicking—most likely over Kakashi's potential reactions.  
  
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You know," Iruka stated calmly.

Kakashi had never really seen Iruka like this before. Iruka was very open with his emotions, Kakashi had seen plenty of them over the years. He’d heard plenty of Iruka’s angry promises snarled at shinobi of every rank (plus one unfortunate ANBU) if they couldn’t do their paperwork properly—which also included Kakashi. Iruka’s calm, softly spoken threats were the most dangerous. As he was accustomed to it, Kakashi did not miss the soft, threatening undertone hiding in Iruka's words. He was frightened, but he would not hesitate to fight Kakashi should the need arise. 

Only, Kakashi wasn't sure if_ he_ could rise to the challenge. Myths were, oftentimes, based on some truth, and he guessed that being a vampire came with its bag of fun tricks.

"I know," Kakashi softly answered.

Iruka set the planner down and stood at attention, readying himself for whatever Kakashi decided.

“And?”

Kakashi quirked a challenging eyebrow, “Answer my question.”

“You’re seriously asking?” Iruka asked incredulously, scowling down at Kakashi.

Kakashi nodded his head to which Iruka answered with a roll of his eyes.

“Despite what the myths say, the sun doesn’t hurt me,” Iruka sighed. “But I do become more sensitive to it if I haven’t fed in a while.”

“And you drink blood?”

“Yes.”

“From people—”

“No,” Iruka quickly interrupted. “I get a bi-monthly supply from the hospital, and have since I was a kid.”

Huh. Well that made sense, Kakashi supposed.

“Since Hiruzen took you in after the Nine-Tails catastrophe.”

Iruka's expression went blank and only offered Kakashi a curt nod as confirmation.

Kakashi took a breath and exhaled as more thoughts flooded his mind. He was hardly an academic, but he did enjoy learning how things worked as well as the odd bit of obscure trivia. Iruka was a puzzle Kakashi sorely wished to figure out, but he wouldn’t overwhelm the man _too_ much.

“Alright then, I’ll deal with the paperwork and see you in the meeting room for the ten o’clock,” Kakashi said, reaching for the first stack of papers and files. “I assume you’ll be looking in on the mission desk trainees in the meantime, Iruka?”

Iruka visibly relaxed as the tension broke. 

“Yes, Kakashi-sama,” Iruka said as he picked the planner up off the desk, grumbling as he continued, “Maiyu tried to break into the filing cabinets again. I’ll have to add more interesting non-lethal traps to break the habit.”

Kakashi snickered good-naturedly. “Great. On your way out, will you send Cat in?”

“Will do,” Iruka replied with a quick dip of his head then made a hasty retreat, closing the office door behind him.

Tenzo appeared in front of his desk in an instant.

“Tenzo, I need a favor.”

Kakashi could just imagine the forlorn look his kohai was giving him behind the mask. It thoroughly delighted him.

“What are you getting yourself into this time, senpai?” Tenzo sighed in exasperation.

*

A quarter after eleven, Kakashi dashed into his office. Tenzo was standing dutifully next to the desk holding a string of garlic bulbs in one hand.

"Tenzo! You got what I needed—excellent!" Kakashi said giddily while resisting the urge to rub his hands together.

Tenzo held out of the string of garlic to Kakashi and said, with mild concern, "Is everything okay, Kakashi?"

Kakashi’s grin widened as he snatched the garlic from his kohai and draped it across his shoulders like he would his Hokage robes. "Everything is perfect."

“You’re not going to tell me what the garlic is for, are you?”

“Nope!”

“Do I at least get to stick around and see?”

“Nope!”

Tenzo sighed heavily and disappeared.

Kakashi plopped himself in his chair, cracked open Icha Icha Tactics (the copy he had found in the staff break room, taped underneath one of the chairs), and waited for Iruka to show up.

He had gotten through three and a half chapters before the door to his office opened again.

Iruka had a file open as he walked through the door.

“Kakashi—” Iruka began to say until he looked up from the file cradled in his hand and his mouth snapped shut.

Kakashi lived for that weird silence after he did or said something to fluster Iruka. His assistant’s face was a silly twist between consternation and disbelief. Kakashi _loved _it.

Iruka rolled his eyes and closed the office door.

“You'd probably have a better chance keeping me away if you ate all those garlic bulbs, Kakashi,” Iruka deadpanned.

“So… Garlic isn’t vampire repellent?” Kakashi asked, sounding a little put out.

“No, but your bad breath would probably kill me,” Iruka smirked. “I expected a lot of things, Kakashi, but you taking myths at face value wasn’t one of them.”

Kakashi shrugged and pulled the garlic off his shoulders, shoving it into one of his desk drawers as Iruka approached his desk. “I thought I’d see for myself, academic curiosity and all. It’s not very often you discover your assistant is a vampire, after all.”

“How often do you think people just stumble upon the knowledge that their subordinate is a vampire?” Iruka snorted and closed the file, throwing it on the desk. “Here’s next month’s roster for the jounin ready room.”

Kakashi put his elbow on the table and settled his chin in the palm of his hand as he pushed the file to the side of his desk his other hand.

“Aren’t vampires supposed to be incredibly pale?” Kakashi asked, squinting thoughtfully up at Iruka.

“I regularly get tans,” Iruka shot back without missing a beat.

“Wait. Really?”

Iruka let loose a pained sigh. Kakashi wasn’t a mind reader, but he’d gladly bet anyone that Iruka was silently calling him a dumbass. The perturbed look on Iruka’s face said a lot about what the man was thinking.

“Have you considered that maybe_ you’re _the vampire? No one has a pastier looking ass than you in the entire village.” Iruka said, arching an accusing eyebrow.

That was a popular rumor that circulated the village, born out of his weird habits and incredible paleness. But no, he was a warm body. Speaking of, he’d have to remember to see if Iruka was as cold as a block of ice.

Kakashi widened his eyes in faux surprise, using the hand his chin had been resting on to cover his mouth as he gasped, “You’ve seen my ass?”

Iruka spluttered.

Well, it seemed he had normal human body reactions if the blush was anything to go by.

He was probably heading into dangerous waters by admitting it to himself, but Iruka looked cute flustered.

“Is that a yes or no?” Kakashi goaded, then immediately basked in the glare it elicited.

“No!”

Once Iruka stormed out of the room, cheeks still burning red, Kakashi decided that Iruka had endured enough torture from him for the day.

He didn’t want Iruka to kill him.

_ Today, _ anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi terrorizes Iruka and then invites him over for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is late because I forgot an important chunk, and had to rewrite some of the chapter to make sure everything fit! Rewriting also ensured that this fic will be more than 2 chapters. I'm hoping it won't exceed 3, but writing likes to get out of hand sometimes.
> 
> Enjoy!

Kakashi went home that evening thinking about what theories he could test next.

While he mainly leaned toward reading Icha Icha, Kakashi did read other things if the text intrigued him enough. Same went for crappy horror films. So there was a lot to work with where vampire legends were concerned.

In one of the books he had once read, vampires were said to be unable to stand moving bodies of water, nor did they like blessed water. The text went on to explain that if a vampire was affected by either of these things, they would be discorporated and return to their resting place to regenerate, allowing someone to follow them back and destroy them while in their weakened state (Kakashi wasn’t going to destroy Iruka, of course. He didn’t want to find a subpar replacement for the man, Kakashi liked him too much).

Which is how he came into the idea of bringing a bucket of water to the office with him the next day. Whether the water was blessed or not was another thing entirely. He wasn’t sure if the priest was just rolling with the absurdity of his request, so it was more than likely plain old well water.

“Why do you have a bucket of water, Kakashi?” Tenzo asked flatly.

It was barely seven forty-five in the morning and already Tenzo sounded like he was done with the entire day.

_ He should be proud of me, _ Kakashi thought haughtily. This was two days in a row that he had shown up to work early.

Admittedly, he had ulterior motives, but he was early nonetheless.

The bucket in question sat next to his desk, filled to the brim with cool, clear water.

“It’s for Iruka,” Kakashi simply stated.

“Are you trying to make Iruka quit his job, Kakashi?” Tenzo groused, “Because if you keep doing weird stuff, he’s going to quit, and then he’s going to kill you. I will _ let _ him kill you.”

Kakashi snorted. “I never thought I’d hear you of all people say such treasonous things, Tenzo. You must be grumpy this morning.” he taunted.

“I’m doing my duty as your friend and bodyguard by giving you a heads up about your impending murder.”

“You wouldn’t let him murder me, would you?” Kakashi pouted, swiveling in his chair to face his kohai—who had his arms crossed over his chest—and looked up at him with sad eyes.

“I’ll be the one making sure you can’t escape—”

“You’re dismissed, Tenzo,” Kakashi said, abruptly cutting Tenzo off as the doorknob on the office door turned.

Tenzo sighed and flickered out of the room.

Swiftly, Kakashi began building chakra and forming seals. Despite losing the Sharingan, Kakashi still remembered all his favorite jutsu he had borrowed (stolen) in the past. He completed the sequence as the door opened.

The water in the bucket began to react and bend to Kakashi’s will as his chakra was infused into it, taking the shape of a dragon as it rose up out of its container. Obeying its creator, the water dragon rushed for Iruka who was not at all expecting to be attacked.

Iruka was soaked within a second and the pile of papers, files, and scrolls in his arms suffered a worse fate.

“What the _ fuck _ was that for?!” Iruka roared.

Ooooookay, he might not have thought his plan all the way through.

Iruka was hopping mad.

The killing intent hotly radiating off his assistant should have alerted his ANBU guard, but Kakashi supposed that Tenzo had something to do with that. At least he knew how he was going to die. To help ease his pending suffering, Kakashi’s mind pointed out how nicely Iruka’s wet clothes clung to his body.

“I wanted to know if moving water was one of your weaknesses,” Kakashied truthfully admitted.

“It’s not, _ asshole, _ and you ruined all the paper.” Iruka snarled, tossing his arm full to the floor—the ruined paper landed with a wet splat.

“Okay, but that water was also blessed at the temple. You know—holy water?”

Iruka stomped over to the desk and Kakashi fought hard against his fight or flight instincts.

“How are you this _ stupid?” _ Iruka spat and slapped his hands down on the desk, leaning forward into Kakashi’s personal space. “What the fuck would you have done if that shit did hurt me?”

“But it didn’t,” Kakashi argued weakly, quailing beneath Iruka’s ire as he leaned away from Iruka.

Okay, Iruka had a point. He was just poking the bear at this point, making a game of it. There was a chance he could seriously injure Iruka without meaning to if he kept fucking around with vampire myths.

“But what if it did?” Iruka asked pointedly, uncaring of the water that dripped off him and down onto the desk he was leaning on. “You’re usually not this reckless, Kakashi,” he scolded.

“I’m sorry,” Kakashi found himself saying without really thinking about it.

Iruka narrowed his eyes, “Sorry for what?”

“For soaking you with water.”

“And?”

Kakashi sighed in defeat, “And for being an asshole.”

And just like that, Iruka’s demeanor shifted considerably as he backed off and righted himself.

His assistant was still irritated, but Kakashi didn’t feel like he was going to get murdered.

“If you’re that curious, you can just ask me questions about it. I’m not going to lie to you or withhold information. And it’s not just because you’re the Hokage, Kakashi.” Iruka said.

_ We’re friends too, _ Kakashi silently added.

“So, would you be up for having stakes with me sometime this week then? Maybe on Saturday?” Kakashi asked cheekily, pulling a long cylindrical piece of wood— that he’d sharpened at one end—from his desk drawer and held it up for Iruka to see. “Tenzo is starting to suspect something is going on.”

God, it was such a cheesy pun, but Kakashi couldn’t stop thinking about it since last night after getting the water from the temple. He giggled about it a lot more than he slept.

Iruka’s eyes swung upward, no doubt trying to beseech some god to smite him where he stood. But his exasperated facade broke as he snorted in amusement.

“That was so bad Kakashi, even for you,” Iruka chortled.

Kakashi smiled, enjoying the sound of Iruka’s laughter.

“So? Dinner? I can cook and you can fill me in on all the vampire stuff,” Kakashi suggested.

“If you’re on the menu, then sure,” Iruka challenged, raising an eyebrow.

The comment short-circuited Kakashi’s brain for a hot second. His first thought was that Iruka was flirting with him. It was a frequently used conversational device in Icha Icha, although it took different forms. Kakashi wouldn’t object to being devoured for dinner. Then he remembered that Iruka didn’t eat normal people's food and that Iruka was suggesting that he’d be eating him for supper. For a genius, he was a dumbass sometimes.

“Oh… I just—I mean,” Kakashi fumbled as his face heated up.

Iruka was laughing at him again.

“It’s fine, Kakashi, I can still eat normal human food. I do it a lot to keep up pretenses, you know?”

“So, seven then?”

“As long as you’re done tormenting me with shitty vampire myths.”

Kakashi could work with that.

*

Two days later, Iruka showed up right at seven o’clock for dinner wearing just the standard shinobi fatigues; no weapons pouches, hitai-ate, or a flak jacket. Kakashi had also dressed down for the occasion, choosing to wear an old ANBU tank top, with the mask up, and his favorite pair of black, loose-fitting sweatpants. His hair was swept back and held in place with a fabric headband to keep his hair out of his face.

When Kakashi answered the door, Iruka gave him a cursory once over and a slightly raised eyebrow. Which was fine, it wasn’t a date. Just a casual dinner between friends. A human and a vampire—a completely normal dinner. Kakashi blushed.

Kakashi anxiously went back to the kitchen and put the finishing touches on dinner, which did not end up being steaks, despite his shitty joke. He had decided on a white bean chili—a recipe he had bartered off a cook in a village in the land of rivers during a mission that he had quickly gotten addicted to—and homemade bread. Not the usual Konoha fare by any means.

Dinner was served at the kotatsu (it was cool enough for it now) and Kakashi poured them both a glass of wine. They shared amusing stories from their pasts as they ate their food—Iruka politely did not look at Kakashi while he ate too. He wouldn’t have minded Iruka seeing his face, after all, he trusted him.

Kakashi was glad for the inane small talk. He didn’t know how to broach the subject of vampirism, even after Iruka said he wouldn’t hide anything from him.

“That was pretty amazing, Kakashi. I didn’t know you could cook,” Iruka said with a pleased sigh as he sipped his glass of wine.

“Yeah well, I needed something to occupy my mind when I was younger, and Kushina took it upon herself to teach me a thing or two,” Kakashi explained. The memories of cooking with Kushina came easily too him. He was a little shit when he was a kid, but he appreciated the memories he had. “I decided to keep at it, to honor her memory.”

Iruka’s expression softened and made Kakashi’s stomach do flips.

Kakashi didn’t cook for anyone else besides himself. Sometimes he gave Tenzo leftovers when he made too much out of stress, but he never really ate with his kohai. Kakashi had quickly discovered that cooking helped to ease his worries and stress, so sometimes he ended up with enough food to feed a bunch of Narutos. It was gratifying to be praised by Iruka for his cooking, considering what he actually ate. Kakashi was certain Kushina would laugh at him were she alive.

“So how did you figure out I was a vampire?” Iruka asked, finally breaking the ice.

Kakashi relaxed. Thank fuck, he didn’t have to bring it up.

“I assume how Tsunade found out… Unless you were upfront with her about it.”

“Ah,” Iruka hummed. “I had to tell her. She jumped right in to check up on the hospital when she was instated as the Godaime.”

“Right, because you’ve been getting blood from the hospital. She would want to know where the blood was going.” Kakashi added.

Iruka chuckled. “You should have seen the look on her face when I told her. She thought I was pulling one over on her.”

Kakashi snorted, imaging Tsunade’s baffled expression. “I’ll bet. But no, Tsunade didn’t tell me. The Sandaime wrote about you in a journal that she gave me, though, and it explained how he had found you after the Nine-Tails incident.”

Kakashi tugged at his mask, pulling it down to drain the rest of the wine in his glass.

Iruka looked down at the table as a pained look came over his face.

Kakashi fixed his mask back over his nose. He supposed the loss of Hiruzen would never truly fade for him, and Kakashi knew that feeling all too well, considering all the people he had lost himself.

“I thought Tsunade would have told you immediately since I was going to be your assistant.”

“I think giving me the book was her way of telling me. I’m not sure I would have believed her if she had.” Kakashi said. “But even after reading it in Hiruzen’s handwriting, I still didn’t believe it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Kakashi chuckled.

“How did you feel when you found out?” Iruka asked curiously.

“I panicked,” Kakashi honestly confessed, “I didn’t know what the hell I was dealing with when Sandaime said you were a vampire. We all grew up on some iteration of those dumb stories—big scary monsters that kill innocents and bleed them dry, sleep during the day and come out at night.”

“Yeah?” Iruka laughed into his cup as he gulped down the last of his wine. “Growing up, I didn’t know what I was even though my dad tried his hardest to explain it to me. It was a long time before I understood what being a vampire meant for me.”

“You should tell me about it—what it means for you, I mean,” Kakashi said as he picked up the wine bottle from the table and leaned over to pour Iruka another glass, and then himself.

“Thank you. So, what do you want to know?”

Kakashi hummed as he thought about what he wanted to ask first. After a minute’s consideration, Kakashi said: “Were you always a vampire? Or did something happen?”

“I was born a vampire.”

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that. In many vampire tales, new vampires were always made from victims on the cusp of death using weird vampire magic bullshit. Or something along those lines.

“What? I was.” Iruka grinned. “I was born just like any other baby, conceived in the normal way babies are. Dad was the vampire, and Mom was all human. I’m half and half, but I still inherited pretty much all the vampire traits.”

“I was not expecting that at all, to be honest,” Kakashi said and took a deep drink from his glass. Iruka looked away again. Iruka’s determination to not look at his face was both amusing and cute.

“Yeah… There’s a lot of over-dramatization surrounding how people can become vampires.” Iruka said, looking up at him again once the mask was back in place.

“So you’re not gonna tell me if any of them are at least half-way true?” Kakashi prodded, looking at Iruka pointedly.

Iruka smirked, choosing instead to drink his wine over answering the question.

Damn that look was doing things to him, and it should be illegal.

“Fine, keep your secrets,” Kakashi pouted, sticking his lip out far enough that Iruka saw it through the cloth of Kakashi mask, making him laugh.

Kakashi sighed dramatically, “If you won’t tell me that, will you tell me if you have hypnotic seductive vampire powers?”

Iruka smiled, the corners of his mouth curled wickedly as his eyes gleamed with mischief. He set his wine glass back down on the table, and Kakashi inhaled sharply as Iruka began crawling around to his side of the kotatsu. Iruka’s movements were smooth and languid, but there was an edge of danger to them that made Kakashi’s heart race and blood boil.

“Do I have hypnotic seductive vampire powers?” Iruka repeated the question as he made his way slowly toward Kakashi.

Kakashi was torn between standing his ground and fleeing. He had always been the predator, but now, as Iruka moved toward him, he was most assuredly the prey. But even so, Kakashi found that he was incredibly delighted to watch Iruka move toward him.

“I would say I'm quite good at seduction,” Iruka murmured, voice dipping to a lower octave. The sound of it sent a shock of pleasure down Kakashi's spine.

“Oh?” Kakashi replied, voice cracking slightly with desire.

Iruka's gaze slowly trailed over Kakashi's body, making his skin tingle as though the look physically caressed him.

“Mhm,” Iruka hummed. Now only a small sliver of space separated them. Although it was more accurate to say that Iruka was practically in his lap. “It was always meant to lure prey in, you know?”

Kakashi swallowed thickly, noting how Iruka's eyes darted downward to watch the movement intently before staring back into Kakashi's eyes.

Iruka leaned in as he continued to speak. “But I never had to use it for that. I've always had Hiruzen, and then Tsunade, to get me what I need without hurting people.”

He shivered, feeling Iruka's breath against his face and neck as he spoke. Kakashi couldn't bring himself to move now, not because he was scared shitless (he wasn't, but he knew Iruka could probably snap him like a twig effortlessly), but because he wanted to see what Iruka would do.

“Then, uh, what have you used it for?” Kakashi whispered.

Iruka huffed a laugh, sending a puff of air against Kakashi's clothed neck. Kakashi fought hard to keep his arms from wrapping themselves around Iruka.

And then Iruka's teeth, now a little more pointed, were on him, dragging lightly over the side of his neck and pulling at the cloth separating his skin from teeth.

“Fuck,” Kakashi groaned, jutting his chin up to expose more of his neck, submitting himself to Iruka’s attentions as the man’s deep chuckle rolled through him.

The thought of Iruka biting him, with or without fangs, was incredibly hot.

Well, he didn't know he had a kink for biting.

“It’s not so much a seduction technique as it makes mortal beings more compliant. It’s something that happens at will, for whatever the situation requires.” Iruka whispered against Kakashi’s throat. “It goes a long way to soothing riled shinobi who have just returned from their missions. Or settling a classroom full of rambunctious children.”

“And no one would be able to realize it was happening?” Kakashi questioned breathlessly.

“It’s not a jutsu, nor does it require chakra to use. A sensor-type would not be able to detect it. If you still had it, your Sharingan wouldn’t see it; not even a Hyuuga would see it happening.” Iruka’s lips moved against Kakashi as he explained.

Kakashi bit back a groan. “Are you doing it now?”

Iruka shrugged and Kakashi felt Iruka’s lips twist into a smirk as he said, “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

Unable to keep fighting any longer, Kakashi hooked an arm around Iruka’s waist and dragged him properly into his lap.

In the next moment, Kakashi’s mask was down and he was kissing Iruka, muffling the man’s surprised reaction. Later he’d blame his unfortunately low tolerance for alcohol and his ignorance on his apparent attraction to Iruka, but for now, all he cared about was Iruka’s soft lips pressed against his.

Despite his surprise Iruka quickly began to reciprocate, kissing Kakashi deeply. His arms slid up to cling around Kakashi’s shoulders and neck, and his fingers threaded themselves into Kakashi’s hair, easily directing the kiss. Iruka impatiently licked at Kakashi’s lips, demanding to be let in. Kakashi opened himself up to Iruka but was unwilling to keep idle. He pressed in, licking his way in Iruka’s mouth, exploring all that he could as Iruka moved against him.

Kakashi rested his left hand on Iruka’s thigh and began gently kneading at the muscle just above the knee. His right hand adventurously slipped beneath Iruka’s shirt, his fingers slowly carving a path around the small of Iruka’s back and up his side. As distracted as Kakashi was avidly making out with Iruka, he noted that Iruka’s skin was warm, maybe a little cooler than normal. _ Definitely not a block of ice, _ Kakashi thought, as his fingers diverted up around Iruka’s chest to a nipple. The pad of his index finger slowly circled it, he even dared to pinch it gently between his fingers to test its sensitivity.

The reaction was instant, proving that Iruka was most certainly alive_. _

Iruka shivered beneath his touch and the fingers he had twined in Kakashi’s hair tightened their hold as Iruka groaned loudly into the kiss.

Before Kakashi knew it was happening, Iruka had caught his bottom lip between his teeth. There was a brief stinging pinch and then a metallic taste was being shared between them.

And then Iruka was wrenching himself away from Kakashi, looking back at him in horror. Iruka’s pupils were blown wide, so wide that they nearly consumed the irises. In the blink of an eye, Iruka was standing on the other side of the room.

“Iruka, what’s wrong?” Kakashi asked as he moved to stand up.

He was completely confused by the turn of events, and Iruka looked wrong with fear and disgust twisting his features. Sure, it’d been a while since his last make-out session, but he couldn’t have been _that _bad.

Iruka said nothing and instead raised a hand to his face, brushing his fingers against his lips. That’s when Kakashi realized there was something wrong as Iruka stared down at his hand.

The metallic taste he noted only a minute ago lingered in his mouth. Kakashi licked his lips, and his tongue ran over a split in his bottom lip.

It was blood.

It was _his_ blood.

The stinging sensation had been Iruka biting his lip.

_ Fuck. _

They never finished their conversation, getting sidetracked as they had. Kakashi remembered how shocked Iruka had been a few days ago when he almost suggested Iruka bit people to sustain himself. And before Kakashi had been let in on his assistant’s very big secret, he had known the former chuunin-sensei did not like hurting people and avoided it where he could.

“Iruka, everything’s okay,” Kakashi calmly said, trying to soothe Iruka as he took several slow steps around the kotatsu.

Iruka looked up at him sharply, and Kakashi didn’t need the Sharingan to predict Iruka’s next movements.

“Iruka, wait—” he tried to say but Iruka was gone before he could finish the thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi tries to talk to Iruka, and an assassination attempt is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay yeah, this fic got out of control, and of course, my plans flew out the window. No spicy stuff this chapter, sorry friends.
> 
> Warning: there is a mild description of an injury (arm getting cut off) later in the chapter + mentions of blood. Nothing too wild, but stay on your toes.

After Iruka had fled the house Saturday night Kakashi felt horrible the remainder of the weekend, even if their impromptu make-out session ended in an accident. He didn't like the look of disgust that marred Iruka's face. The only explanation that made sense, and the conclusion he kept coming as he replayed that night over and over, was that the accident had caused Kakashi to bleed.

He urgently wanted to talk Iruka about it, assure the man everything was okay. Kakashi found that he really liked kissing Iruka, and he could hardly believe he'd been so blind to his attraction towards the other man. But Kakashi didn't see or hear from his assistant until Monday morning came around.

Kakashi decided to keep his punctuality for a little longer if only to get back on Iruka's good side, and perhaps get him to have a conversation about Saturday.

“Good morning Iruka,” Kakashi happily greeted when Iruka finally walked in, bearing the typical Monday morning workload.

Iruka looked reserved and a little tense.

“Good morning, Hokage-sama," Iruka replied. His tone was on the frosty side, and the use of the far-too-formal address stung.

It had taken a long time to break Iruka out of the habit of being way too formal. Kakashi wasn’t the kind of person that walked on formality and tradition.

"Before we get down to business, can we talk, Iruka?” Kakashi asked imploringly.

Iruka didn’t even look at him as he began laying out a spread of paperwork upon the desk, day planner nowhere in sight. Iruka hadn’t planned on staying very long.

"Here's the proposal from Sand about the student exchange program, the dossiers on potential ANBU candidates should be looked at as soon as possible, and the ANBU commanders are also complaining about a gap in the training courses."

Kakashi frowned. “What gap?”

“The taijutsu sensei is on medical leave right now. Broken leg.” Iruka explained.

“Get in touch with Gai then, he owes me a favor and he will be discreet.” Kakashi said, “Will you please talk to me? What happened Satu—”

Iruka ignored Kakashi and plowed right on. “You also need to go over the orphanage evaluations and allocate resources—”

“Iruka!” Kakashi sternly commanded, standing up out of his chair.

Iruka's mouth shut with an audible click, and for the first time since he entered the office, Iruka met his gaze. Iruka glared at him fiercely.

“Iruka, please. We—”

“We don’t need to do anything!" Iruka seethed, mouth twisting into a silent snarl.

“What happened that night—”

Iruka was trying his damndest to keep Kakashi from getting a word in edgewise. “I don't want to talk about this!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, but it's still going to happen.”

“I don’t have time for this, Hokage-sama. I need to go to the mission desk now,” Iruka said flatly.

Before Kakashi could say anything more Iruka was gone, and Kakashi was starting to hate that little trick. He couldn’t even tell when it was going to happen, there was no build-up of chakra. Kakashi let loose a frustrated growl and sagged back into his chair._ Damn it! _

When Iruka was gone Tenzo materialized before Kakashi’s desk, arms crossed over his chest, looking quite like the parent getting ready to scold their child. Kakashi could feel the look of disapproval his kohai was leveling him with—and for once Kakashi didn’t deserve it.

“What did you do to him now, Kakashi?”

Kakashi glared venomously at Tenzo and growled, “I didn’t do anything to him!”

“That didn’t look like nothing,” his kohai unhelpfully pointed out, “You should have quit while you were ahead.”

“It’s not like that Tenz, I didn’t do anything this time. I asked him over for dinner so that we could talk.”

“It must have been more than just dinner if he’s blowing off all your attempts to talk.”

“It’s complicated,” Kakashi sighed and leaned over the desk, burying his head in his arms.

Cocking his head, Tenzo asked, “Complicated how?”

Kakashi petulantly chose to remain silent.

“Complicated how, Kakashi?” Tenzo prodded.

“We kissed, alright?” Kakashi finally growled, leaving it at that. He trusted his kohai with extremely delicate and dangerous information, but he felt embarrassed telling him about such intimate details. Kakashi felt like he’d die if he told Tenzo anymore.

Tenzo removed his mask revealing his sympathetic expression, and he stared down at Kakashi slumped down over his desk.

“Is that all that happened? Unless you’re that terrible of a kisser, then that wasn’t the problem. What else happened?” he asked.

Kakashi poked his head up out of his arms and looked at Tenzo.

“Iruka panicked and he ran away,” Kakashi lied. Iruka’s secret wasn’t his to tell, and mentioning Iruka’s panic over a bloody lip would only create more questions for Tenzo, who was an extremely curious person. An extremely curious and persistent person.

Tenzo gave him the _ ‘you’re not telling me everything, and that’s okay. But I’ll find out eventually’ _ look.

“Kakashi, you need to give Iruka space then. I'm not going to pretend I know what happened between you, but trying to force him to talk, or force him to listen, is just going to make everything worse." Tenzo advised. "I know you want to fix what happened, and as stupid as you've been acting lately, I know you never intended to hurt Iruka in any way. He’ll come to you when he’s ready.”

“How can you be so sure?” Kakashi asked.

“I’m not, but this is a better alternative than making him hate you. If you want a chance to reconcile, then don’t hound him.” Tenzo grinned, then settled his mask back over his face.

Kakashi snorted. “You are hereby banned from using puns around me.”

Tenzo snickered as he resumed his post.

*

Kakashi didn’t like it one bit, but he decided to go along with Tenzo’s advice. He knew deep down that his kohai was right, he needed to give Iruka space, and trying to force Iruka to talk would only exacerbate the issue.

The following week and a half was hell.

Kakashi assumed his regular work schedule for the most part. Showing up a half-hour late rather than his usual one. The day’s work was already laid out neatly on his desk long before he showed up to the office, and any notable meeting reminders were written down on a half-sheet of seal paper and sealed to his desk. By accident, Kakashi had discovered the slips of sealing paper could not be damaged in any way when he had spilled his tea all over his desk in frustration.

Kakashi followed the slip of paper to the letter: he did his paperwork, went to the meetings, and mindlessly trudged through everything between and still there was no sign of his assistant at all.

More often than not, his mind wandered to Iruka. Kakashi wondered how the man was doing, hoping he wasn’t ignoring everyone and everything just to avoid talking with him. When the evening came, and Kakashi was finally done with work, well past when he should have been off, he’d go home to an empty house. Kakashi had begun to notice the void Iruka left in his absence and it made him wonder if Iruka would ever speak to him again.

While he got his work done in a timely fashion, Kakashi had reached a point where he was oblivious to everything else. He was running on autopilot, relying on routine formed over decades.

Tuesday, into week two of no Iruka, began as it normally did: wake up, get ready for work, show up to work, survive work. Like the days that came before it, Kakashi’s head was in the clouds, hoping that today would be the day that Iruka’s silence would finally break.

He’d been sitting at his desk all morning, even choosing to skip lunch to get the day’s large pile of paperwork and scrolls out of the way. Kakashi sent his ANBU guard away as well so he didn’t have to deal with Tenzo’s concerned glances. No one bothered him while he worked.

Kakashi wasn’t expecting anyone either, and there were no meetings today, which he was thankful for. As a result, Kakashi was woefully unprepared for the sudden appearance of an ANBU in a boar mask materializing in the office, aiming to slash at him with a katana.

The intruder moved swiftly, Kakashi could feel them channeling chakra and he’d bet his entire Icha Icha collection that it was going into the sword. In response, Kakashi went to pull a kunai from its holster, grimly realizing that his reaction time was too slow. He wouldn’t be able to put up an effective defense in time to deflect the blow.

As the blade arced down, Kakashi silently apologized to Tsunade for forcing her into taking up the hat again. He only hoped that she’d forgive him for this.

Kakashi refused to shut his eyes or look away. He stared death in the face, prepared to greet is as an old friend.

And then Iruka was there, standing between him and his would-be assassin.

The chakra infused sword and Iruka met. The swipe of the sword cleanly lopped off Iruka’s left arm, splattering dark crimson blood against Kakashi’s desk. The now-severed arm fell limply to the floor with an audible thump.

Instantly, Iruka had Kakashi’s attacker pinned by their throat back against the right-side wall, wordlessly growling and snarling at his now hysterical and struggling captive.

All Kakashi could focus on was Iruka’s missing arm and the open wound. Such an injury would be near-fatal for any ninja, but Iruka didn’t even seem fazed by it. He didn’t hold his body like he was in pain.

Yet Kakashi couldn’t help but feel angry over Iruka receiving an injury.

The would-be assassin tried to call for help, mouthing their pleads for mercy as they wheezed—gasping desperately for air. The struggle shook Kakashi out of his thoughts.

Iruka had begun choking the imposter.

Kakashi quickly resumed his aborted movement and drew his kunai, standing up out of his chair just as Tenzo and Murata flickered into the office a few feet from Iruka. Tenzo immediately froze, quickly grabbing his newest kohai and roughly pulling him back by his arm.

“Senpai—” Murata asked in confusion, his voice wavered with fear.

“Stay,” Tenzo harshly commanded.

Kakashi didn’t understand Tenzo’s reaction, even as he approached Iruka and his captive.

Only when Iruka turned his head sharply to look at him, did Kakashi finally understand.

Iruka had_ changed. _

Iruka’s skin had gotten darker and gained a more textured look—more sinewy; his ears were long and came to pointed ends; his cheekbones and chin were sharper and more defined; his eyes were black, hateful voids; his nose had been flattened more against his face, and appeared to be more in a wide V shape with long slits for nostrils. 

Iruka’s most notable features were his teeth and claws. Of what he could see on the undamaged arm, the claws on its hand were easily six inches in length and lethal-looking. Every tooth in his snarling mouth was sharp and could easily rip flesh from bone. His fangs were the most prominent of them—long and frightening.

Iruka was monstrous and Kakashi was panicking.

‘It’s still Iruka, you knew what he was before all this happened,’ Kakashi commented silently to himself in an attempt to get ahold of his turbulent emotions.

_ Except he didn’t tell you about this. He lied to you. _Came the small traitorous voice in the back of his mind.

‘It was a lie of omission. Iruka didn’t do it out of spite, he did it out of fear. I trust him.’ Kakashi argued with his doubt.

_ It doesn’t matter now because two of your subordinates have seen the real Iruka. How will you keep Iruka safe now that people know what he is? _

‘I’ll think of something’ Kakashi vowed with determination.

_ You became distracted, you could have died. How can you protect Iruka when you can’t even protect yourself? _Kakashi’s inner self goaded.

‘Iruka is a strong shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. He is capable of protecting himself. Iruka doesn’t _ need _ me, but I will gladly stand beside him.’

“Iruka, let Cat and Kingfisher take him,” Kakashi finally managed to say in a soft, cautious voice while he lowered his weapon. Iruka watched his movements carefully—Kakashi could tell he was assessing the threat-level.

The attacker began to wiggle in earnest now—they helplessly pulled and clawed at the hand pinning them harshly to the wall.

Kakashi assumed that he’d been deemed a non-threat when Iruka focused his attention back to the imposter. He relaxed considerably as he observed his assistant. Kakashi figured Iruka was weighing his options: kill the intruder or release him to the proper authority. Iruka didn’t seem to be a mindless creature, and that conclusion was extremely comforting.

After a minute of more desperate gasps and soft growling, Iruka said, in a deep and dangerous rumble, “Were I a lesser creature, you’d be suffering much worse than what Torture and Interrogation will be putting you through.”

Kakashi was momentarily taken aback by Iruka’s words, and so seemed his two ANBU guard. 

Iruka released his hold on the assassin, letting them fall to the ground in a heaving lump, and took several steps backward to give both ANBU room to collect their prisoner while keeping a safe distance away from Kakashi.

Tenzo looked to Kakashi first, only moving—and dragging along Murata with him—when Kakashi signed ‘proceed’ in ANBU field code. They quickly bound the assassin with chakra cuffs and wire.

As they were readying to teleport out, Kakashi spoke.

“After you’ve dropped off the package, report back to me immediately. Speak to no one of what you saw beyond the assassination attempt,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Yes, Hokage-sama,” Tenzo replied firmly while Murata simply nodded in compliance. And then they were gone, leaving Kakashi and Iruka alone in the office.

Before doing anything more, Kakashi put his kunai away and began forming a series of hand-seals to activate the privacy seals within the office. The windows went black, the doors were sealed shut, and the sound was dampened to prevent eavesdroppers from listening outside of the room. Tenzo would know how to get back into the office once he and Murata finished dealing with the captive.

Kakashi was suddenly overwhelmed by the emotions he had been suppressing since Iruka had appeared. He stalked over toward the man in question and rounded on him.

“You didn't have to jump in front of me like that, Iruka!” Kakashi snarled indignantly. He could hardly look at Iruka's wound without becoming even more infuriated. It was still freely leaking blood, and there were little puddles of it all over the floor where Iruka had been walking and standing. _ Fuck! _ “I could have handled it!”

“You could have handled it?” Iruka snapped back in that deep, rumbly voice as he went and picked up his arm, which was still laying on the floor where it had dropped several minutes ago. “It sure as fuck didn’t look like you were going to do anything about it! And you sent your bodyguards away? You fucking moron!”

Iruka held his severed arm up to his bleeding wound, and Kakashi watched in angry fascination as the tissues and bone began to quickly knit themselves back onto Iruka’s body. He didn’t seem to be at all bothered by the act. When it was done, Iruka pulled the sleeve off the arm and checked it over. Were it not for all the blood soaking Iruka’s flak jacket, the torn uniform shirt, and the little bloody drips and puddles on the floor, Kakashi would never have guessed Iruka had gotten his arm cut off. There wasn’t even a scar leftover.

“I care about you, you idiot!” Iruka growled in frustration. He stomped back over to Kakashi and poked him fiercely in the chest. He no longer wore the visage of an angry monster, “I've been in love with you for years now, Kakashi, and if that means getting my arm chopped off protecting you, I gonna fucking do it! I don’t need your _ permission.” _

Kakashi was utterly blindsided by his confession.

Iruka loved him?

He had been ignorant of his true feelings of Iruka, thinking them close friends, even with the addition of his recent thoughts of the man since he’d become the Hokage’s assistant. All those times Iruka had been teasing him, and Kakashi had been waffling on, silently trying to determine if he was flirting... Iruka _had been_ flirting with him. Then they kissed and Kakashi was confused by everything—

Gods above, Iruka _loved _him. 

Iruka continued to rant, taking advantage of Kakashi’s silence in the wake of his inner turmoil. “You're not just Hatake Kakashi, Jounin of the Hidden Leaf anymore. You the _ Hokage, _ and you're dead wrong if you think none of us, me especially, are going to sit around and let you fight your battles alone!”

“You love me?” Kakashi asked dazedly.

Iruka deflated, rolling his eyes, “Get a clue, Kakashi.”

“But you ran, and then I didn’t see you for over a week,” Kakashi scowled.

Iruka sighed and muttered something Kakashi couldn’t quite hear. “I’m sorry about that, but we really should wait to talk about this. You still have to deal with Cat and Kingfisher.” Iruka pointed out, and Kakashi answered it with a sigh of his own. “We can have this conversation over dinner. Preferably at your place because it offers more privacy. I’ll bring take out?”

Kakashi wanted to argue against it, mainly out of the irrational fear that Iruka would disappear on him again. “Do you promise?”

Iruka blinked in confusion, “What?”

“That you’ll come over. Do you promise?” Kakashi repeated, doubling down on his worry.

Iruka smiled, stepping even closer to Kakashi.

“I promise, Kakashi, I’ll be there,” Iruka said as he leaned up and pressed his lips against Kakashi’s clothed ones, kissing him chastely.

Before Kakashi thought to kiss him back, Iruka was backing away and disappearing in the blink of an eye.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi addresses his ANBU, and Iruka and Kakashi finally get a chance to talk (with a nice helping of smut).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took way longer than I wanted...there were some setbacks. As an unexpected consolation, this chapter is a whopping 7,547 words in length! I've also adjusted the rating accordingly, the smut I had planned got out of control like the rest of this story.
> 
> With the posting of this chapter, the main story is finished. You can expect the epilogue for this in the next day or so, as it shouldn't be too long (2,000 words or under). And I might post a couple of deleted scenes. So if you're interested in either of those things, keep a lookout!
> 
> I am extremely proud of this story, and this chapter in particular. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do!

Kakashi didn’t have to wait long for Tenzo and Murata to return; they materialized before his desk. He could see from their body language that they were wary of their surroundings, and who could blame them after what all three of them had just witnessed?

Kakashi was sat on the edge of the desk facing his subordinates, and after a moment’s observance, he addressed them.

“Take your masks off,” he ordered.

Both were a little slow to comply, but Kakashi blamed that on nerves.

“What I’m about to tell you is extremely classified. To preface this, before you two found out accidentally, only three people knew about Iruka, and all of them are Kages. One of them is me.” Kakashi began.

Tenzo’s face was void of all emotion but the newer ANBU looked haunted. Neither seemed keen on saying anything just yet, so Kakashi continued.

“Umino Iruka is a vampire.”

_That _ got a reaction.

Kakashi watched Tenzo frown, he turned his eyes down to the floor as his mind turned the new piece of information over and digested it. Murata, on the other hand, looked back at him in frightened disbelief.

After a few silent minutes, Tenzo finally looked back up at Kakashi, eyes narrowed, and said, “So all that stupid shit you’ve been doing to Iruka…?”

Kakashi pointed at Tenzo, “Bingo.”

“And we’re just supposed to be okay with that, Hokage-sama?” Murata asked hesitantly.

“The Sandaime was okay with it, as is Tsunade—I’m okay with it,” Kakashi shrugged. “Nothing strange has happened, and Iruka was one of the best chuunin-sensei the village has had. We have nothing to fear from him. Hell, I fucked up and he saved my life.”

“Speaking of, you’re not allowed to send us out of the office again, or send us away at all.” Tenzo groused, glaring at Kakashi.

Kakashi snorted, “I’d really like to know how that imposter managed to get around so easily as they did in the first place. He was in full ANBU gear—mask included.”

Fuck, he was going to raise hell over that bullshit. He’d start with T&I first, since apparently, they’d grown so complacent that enemies were stealing supplies now without anyone the wiser. Then he’d rip apart the team monitoring the barrier that surrounded Konoha. Kakashi would not let such a gross breach of security be passed off as an accident.

“We’ll find out soon enough, Ibiki got a scary look in his eyes when we told him about the assassination attempt,” Murata said, visibly shivering.

That wasn’t surprising. Ibiki was a weird one when it came to anything concerning interrogation. Kakashi had never seen someone more excited to torture people in his entire life. It’d been a while since the last assassination attempt on a Hokage, and Ibiki didn’t get a chance to work his magic, as Tsunade had completely obliterated the fool who had tried.

“Anyway,” Kakashi sighed, “For now I’m going to keep both of you on the day-shift guard rotation until I can safely bring a few more ANBU into the fold. And hopefully, there won’t be any further incidents until then.” he finished pointedly.

“Yeah, until a bigger catastrophe happens and Iruka outs himself again,” Tenzo groaned, which seemed to amuse Murata. That was a good sign.

“You should be mindful of what you wish for, Tenzo because Konoha seems to effortlessly attract a lot of trouble,” Kakashi mockingly warned him. Tenzo answered with a roll of his eyes.

Kakashi pushed off the desk and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I suppose we should all get back to work now,” he grumbled sourly as he looked at the bloody mess the was strewn across the office floor.

Tenzo and Murata acknowledged the passive order and put their masks back on.

Kakashi raised a hand and pointed at his ANBU guard.

“One last thing, before you resume your duties,” Kakashi said, stopping them, “If either of you breathes a word of this to anyone, or so much as vaguely hint at today’s events, I’ll execute you myself,” he promised blithely.

Tenzo was unperturbed by his words, as he expected, but Murata tensed up quite nicely.

They left without any further words, their orders heard loud and clear.

“What a mess,” Kakashi groaned, eying a particularly large puddle of Iruka’s blood.

At least he had something to look forward to later.

*

Although the drama that played out in his office was resolved, and the evidence was cleaned up, Kakashi found himself keyed up and on edge as he waited for Iruka to finally show up.

He was pacing around his living room impatiently.

The good news was that everything was under control, and he would unlikely have to worry about either Tenzo or Murata spilling the beans on a secret that's been kept for roughly three decades. Even better news, Ibiki had managed to pull all the information he needed from the assassin.

Watanabe Yusuke: S-Class missing-nin formerly of Iwa. Went rogue as the truce between the five great elemental nations had endured after the war ended. He was angry, believing that his entire clan had been wiped out by the Hidden Leaf and covered up to make it look like Kumo's doing during the third great shinobi war. It was the other way around; Kumo was trying their damndest to frame Konoha and goad Iwa into turning on their tenuous allies.

The man wanted revenge—to start another war—beginning with the assassination of Konoha’s newest Hokage. He was apparently working alone, however, no one seemed to figure out where he lifted a Konoha ANBU uniform and mask from.

Kakashi would be talking with Iwa about their missing-nin in the coming week. He was delighted that he wouldn't be dealing with Ōnoki. He hated that man with a burning passion.

Aside from the assassination bullshit, Kakashi hoped that Iruka was doing better since he’d last saw him. The anticipation was slowly killing him, there was so much he wanted to talk to Iruka about. There was a serious competition taking place in his head between the love confession and the fact that Iruka was so nonchalant about getting his fucking arm cut off.

The arm thing was really getting to him though. Hiruzen had been smart to take Iruka in, and Iruka was clever flying under the radar for as long as he did. People like Danzo would have loved to exploit Iruka; he had been young enough when he was orphaned to be recruited into ROOT.

Kakashi shuddered at the thought.

Fortunately, it was interrupted by a knock at his door. Kakashi looked to the clock on the wall, it read seven o’clock.

It took every ounce of Kakashi’s willpower not to dash to the door and throw it open.

“Hey,” Iruka said, smiling at Kakashi.

Kakashi’s entire body relaxed. He hadn’t realized he was so tensed up, but upon seeing Iruka on the other side of his door, he felt like the strings that had been holding him up were finally cut. He unclenched his jaw and let his body fall into its familiar slouch.

“Hey,” Kakashi sighed in relief, and Iruka’s smile got even wider in response. It made him wonder, “Were you worried too?”

“Honestly? _ Yes. _ Today didn’t feel real, and I thought you’d hate me if I showed up here—you know, after…”

Kakashi was pleased to note that Iruka had dressed down again. It was nice, it made him feel calm. Iruka seemed to want to be comfortable tonight, and in turn, it made Kakashi feel less anxious.

“Yeah, and I thought you’d avoid me again,” Kakashi said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

Iruka’s smile turned wan, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’d really like to explain that, I owe it to you. I even brought food.” he said, lifting his arm to show off the Ichiraku’s take-out bag dangling off his finger.

Kakashi opened the door wider and stepped aside, allowing Iruka to shuffle in.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Kakashi said as he shut the door. He waited for Iruka to pull his sandals off, then led Iruka toward the living room.

“I do,” Iruka insisted as he followed Kakashi, “After the way I left things the last time I was here, and with what happened earlier this afternoon—it’s not fair to you.”

When they entered the living room, Kakashi stopped next to the kotatsu and turned to face Iruka. “I disagree. They’re your secrets and you shouldn’t have to force yourself to tell me because you think you owe me anything.” he insisted.

Iruka was unperturbed by Kakashi’s words. Though Kakashi expected them to argue about this, like all the things they disagreed on in the past, Iruka was still smiling at him.

Iruka took a few steps forward, putting him in Kakashi’s personal space, and set their dinner on the table.

“Quite the change of heart, Kakashi,” Iruka teased, “You went to great lengths to figure me out after you found out what I was. Now you’re worried about stepping over the line?”

Well, that came back to bite him in the ass.

Kakashi awkwardly cleared his throat. He could feel his face heating up, but his mask spared him more embarrassment. “Yeah, uh, I am sorry about that. I let my curiosity get the better of me...”

“Kakashi, I was joking,” Iruka snickered. He reached out and wrapped his hand loosely around Kakashi’s bared forearm, squeezing gently in reassurance. The touch made Kakashi break out in goosebumps.

He needed to get a hold of himself before he started making a real fool out of himself.

“How about I get us something to drink? Make yourself at home.” Kakashi said and escaped to the kitchen.

“No alcohol this time!” Iruka called from the other room.

“Fine,” Kakashi yelled back.

Kakashi moved around the kitchen with practiced ease. He took out the tin of silver needle tea from the cupboard, put the kettle on to boil, pulled out the serving tray along with two teacups and the teapot. When that was settled, he exited the kitchen and headed for the bathroom.

With Iruka here, Kakashi was finally able to let himself unwind, which meant he could actually change out of work clothes and into something more comfortable.

Kakashi threw on the pajamas he’d worn last night: a pair of old sweats that he’d cut off at the knees and hemmed up (he had used them so much that holes started forming in the fabric between good old fashioned wear and tear and machine washing), and another ANBU shirt (he really, _ really _ loved those shirts; the soft, stretchy material was magical). Kakashi slipped his hitai-ate off and tossed on the counter next to the sink and replaced it with the fabric headband he’d taken to using to keep his hair somewhat tamed. He needed to get a haircut soon.

Kakashi stared at himself in the mirror. After a few seconds of looking at himself, Kakashi tugged the cloth mask back down over his chin and let it pool around his neck, revealing his face. 

“Iruka has to get used to it at some point,” he muttered at his reflection, then left the bathroom.

He returned to the kitchen and leaned against the counter to wait for the kettle. When the tea was ready and everything was neatly arranged on the tray, Kakashi took a deep breath and exhaled before he rejoined Iruka in the living room.

“Hope you’re good with silver needle tea, it’s all I have at the moment,” Kakashi said, placing the tray on the kotatsu where Iruka was sitting beneath the heavy blanket already.

“That’s fine,” Iruka smiled up at him. He reached for the tray and set to pouring himself a cup of tea only to pause when he realized Kakashi’s mask was down. _ “Oh.” _

Kakashi smirked at him. “_ Oh? _ You’ve already seen my face, it’s not that big a deal. We did have a pretty heated make-out session in the not so distant past.”

Iruka glared—with no real heat behind it—and freed the ramen from the plastic bag. He placed one bowl in front of himself and the other bowl in the spot next to him.

“Come sit by me?” Iruka said, patting the empty pillow on his right that he’d stolen from another side of the kotatsu.

Kakashi nodded dumbly and plopped himself down next to Iruka, dragging his teacup toward himself from where he had placed it on the other side of the table.

“You eat, I’ll talk. Stop me if you have any questions.” Iruka commanded, handing Kakashi a fresh pair of chopsticks.

“Okay,” Kakashi replied, accepting and pulling apart the offered chopsticks.

Kakashi took his first bite of ramen as Iruka began his explanation.

“I want to say first that what I said earlier this afternoon is still true, and I’ve been in love with you for years now,” Iruka said, looking at Kakashi pointedly. “That kiss we shared almost two weeks ago now was something I’ve been dreaming about since before the chuunin exam debacle.”

“For that long?” Kakashi remarked incredulously around a mouthful of noodles.

He was surprised to hear that. Kakashi didn’t think he was _that _socially inept to miss the signals, but for Iruka to have been interested in him for_ years… _

Iruka smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I’m hopeless. It took you finding out about me to finally bring us together like this. I confess I wasn’t expecting that you almost getting killed would be the catalyst to me admitting that I’m in love with you.”

Kakashi chuckled. “Yeah, me neither.”

“Anyway, just so we’re clear: I didn’t run because of anything you did. I—” Iruka paused, frowning. He let his eyes find something else to focus on, “I ran because of what I did to you.” he finished softly. Iruka looked ashamed.

Well, that wasn’t right.

Kakashi set is chopsticks down across the top of his ramen bowl, pushing it away, and reached a hand out to Iruka. He hooked his fingers beneath the man’s chin, easing Iruka to look up at him. The gentle touch immediately pulled Iruka’s eyes to Kakashi’s like they were magnetics.

“Biting my lip? You didn’t hurt me Iruka,” Kakashi promised as his thumb lightly smoothed over the corner of Iruka’s mouth, silently willing Iruka’s frown away.

Iruka blushed, gracing Kakashi with a hesitant smile. Kakashi reluctantly removed his hand.

“Yes, because of that. I was always taught growing up that biting people to feed was bad. It’s a terrible way to attract attention to ourselves, and more importantly, it’s not easy to control our instincts while feeding on a host.”

“So feeding on humans is bad?”

“Not in the way you think.” Iruka said, “The thing about vampires is, the blood that sustains us can also be addictive. It’s like eating your favorite food endlessly for the rest of eternity, but you’d also be killing hundreds of people just to get it.”

Eating eggplant miso soup for the rest of his life without getting sick of it would be amazing, Kakashi thought, but the ‘killing people to get it’ part, not so much.

Kakashi’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “So, blood is your food source, but it’s also an addictive substance? That’s...unfortunate.”

_ “Highly _ addictive.” Iruka emphasized, “Entire villages can go missing within several hours if a vampire is left to its own devices. Vampire covens have their own ways to deal with rabid feeders, but vampire society and politics is a discussion for another day.”

Kakashi wasn’t sure he wanted to know how a vampire society operated, but he was sure it’d be interesting if not horrifying. Iruka’s simple explanation made him wonder if any of the small, seemingly empty villages that he’d come across throughout his career were victims of vampire attacks.

“And your reaction to biting my lip has something to do with this?” he guessed.

Iruka nodded.

“After Sandaime found me in the rubble of my old house, took me in, he didn’t know what he was dealing with. We were both out of our depth. I always relied on my father to feed me, I didn’t know where he was getting the blood, and I didn’t know how to take care of the vampire aspect of myself yet.”

Ice dropped into the pit of his stomach at the thought. He was beginning to see where this explanation was going.

“What happened?” Kakashi asked as his stomach roiled uneasily.

“When Hiruzen started getting me blood from the hospital, we tried a couple of feedings each week—around three. Before Mom and Dad died I got two tops every other week, but I never thought to ask my dad why that was. I was so sick of eating animals after the Nine-Tails attack, and I was so _hungry _that I just didn’t care. I took whatever Hiruzen gave me, thoughtlessly. Everything was so fucked up that I just didn’t stop and think about all the stuff I’d been taught.”

“You became addicted,” Kakashi supplied.

“Yes,” Iruka said so quietly that Kakashi barely caught it. Iruka had his fingers twisted into the leg of his pants, his knuckles going deathly white from the strain of his grip.

There was an ominous, pregnant pause then and Kakashi could see the fear very clearly churning in Iruka’s eyes. Kakashi reached over and covered Iruka’s hand with his own and ran his thumb over the whitened knuckles. Slowly but surely Iruka began to relax.

Admittedly, Kakashi was afraid to know what Iruka was going to say next.

“I fell so hard under the influence that Hiruzen started to notice how strange I was acting. He’d catch me staring at people longer than I should have, staring at their throats right where the artery was.” Iruka chuckled bitterly. The sound of it was so hollow and cold that it made Kakashi flinch. “One day I tried to steal blood from the hospital and got caught. The nurse who had found me took the blood packs away. I was so angry and delirious—I needed the blood and I told her so, but she refused to listen. The next thing I knew I was on her, pinning her to the floor with my teeth on her throat... I _ bit _ her, Kakashi.”

Oh _fuck. _

Iruka, who had seemingly never hurt a hair on anyone’s head if he could avoid it, had attacked someone. He shouldn’t be hearing this… How the fuck do you console someone over their past misdeeds?

“An off-duty ANBU caught me in the act and just barely managed to subdue me, and not without a fight. I busted them up pretty good—cracked several ribs and fractured a wrist. It would have been much worse if I had been a fully matured vampire.”

“Iruka…” Kakashi struggled to say.

“I was fortunate that the nurse survived, but the memories from both her and the ANBU had to be sealed. No one could know. It was exciting having to be quarantined while I went cold turkey on the blood.” Iruka grimaced, remembering the event.

“Why are you telling me this?” Kakashi croaked, “I don’t want you putting your livelihood in danger just for full disclosure, Iruka.”

Iruka twisted his hand in Kakashi’s grip—which he had only now noticed was tightly squeezing Iruka’s hand—and twined their fingers together. Kakashi released a shaky breath.

“I love you, and I’d like to give us a shot if you’re up for it. So I’m telling you this because I don’t want these secrets looming over us, Kakashi. We’re shinobi, secrets are our life, but they’re my secrets to tell, and you needed to know that there’s an equal amount of bad stuff that goes along with what I am.”

Kakashi swallowed thickly, his fingers curling more snugly around Iruka’s hand.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified,” Kakashi murmured, staring at his half-eaten bowl of ramen.

Iruka laughed softly and scooted closer to Kakashi, pressing himself up against him, hip to shoulder. Kakashi relaxed again, making a solid effort to soak up Iruka’s comfort.

“And I’d also be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking about you ever since that kiss,” Kakashi continued, a lopsided smile blooming on his face as he cocked his head and looked at Iruka.

“It’s been driving me crazy trying to stay away,” Iruka grinned at him.

“Why did you stay away so long?” Kakashi asked, leaning into Iruka.

“I needed some time to calm down and think. I would have shown up sooner, but then I ran into our infiltrator,” he explained.

“Wait, you knew about them?” Kakashi scoffed, “And you didn’t think to let one of us know?” he groaned, letting his head fall back to stare forlornly up at the ceiling. 

Nine fucking hells.

Iruka tugged his hand.

“He was skulking around in an ANBU uniform and no one seemed to be bothered by the fact. It’s my job as a shinobi of Konoha to investigate—”

“So?” Kakashi looked at him sternly, but Iruka wasn’t at all affected by it. “We could have put someone on him, Iruka!”

“And they could have remained completely undetectable as they followed him around?” Iruka asked, arching an eyebrow challengingly.

“Maybe?” Kakashi argued weakly.

Iruka shook his head. “No one else even realized what he was doing. You almost _died.” _

Kakashi heard a faint ‘dumbass’ muttered under Iruka’s breath.

“So that’s why you showed up out of the blue when he tried to cut me to ribbons. I’m gonna be honest here, Iruka, I’m disappointed that it wasn’t me you were stalking,” Kakashi grumbled petulantly.

Iruka lightly punched his shoulder. “Idiot.”

Kakashi couldn’t help but laugh.

Despite the levity after hearing such heavy truths, there was still a curiosity niggling in the back of his head.

“Is that normal for you?” Kakashi winced. That had sounded better in his head.

Thankfully, Iruka didn’t seem bothered by Kakashi’s poorly worded question—the small smile on his lips didn’t even twitch.

“You mean my other form? Yes, that’s normal for me.” Iruka said easily.

“I didn’t even recognize you at first. You weren’t there, and then you were. But it wasn’t you, it was some...thing—Fuck, I’m messing this up.” Kakashi panicked, slapping a hand over his face in shame.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Iruka looked at him, bumped his shoulder affectionately. “I know what you mean. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t know how to talk about it either.”

Kakashi let loose a relieved sigh and dropped his hand back to his lap. _ Crisis averted. _

“What you saw...how should I put this?” Iruka hummed thoughtfully, “It’s a vague image of what my true form is, I guess, is the best way to explain it. Heightened emotional states let it bleed out, and I end up with interesting features.” he laughed.

Kakashi was reeling. He was so, _so _in over his head with this vampire stuff.

“Would you…?” Kakashi started to ask and vaguely gestured with his hand.

“Would I show my other form?”

“Yeah.”

Iruka smiled at him apologetically, “It’s frightening, and I get the feeling I’ve already overwhelmed you with everything, Kakashi.”

“No, it’s—” Kakashi tried to try deny, but Iruka kindly cut him off.

“I promise we can talk about it more another night, and you can mentally prepare yourself for a viewing. Honestly? I’m afraid of what you’ll think of it.” Iruka said, his hand in Kakashi’s going lax.

Kakashi could hear the insecurities in the tone of his voice. He could hear what wasn’t said: _ ‘I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me.’ _He squeezed Iruka’s hand and leaned his head against Iruka’s, comforting him.

Silence settled over them. It had been an incredibly informative evening, and better yet, Iruka was still here with him. But there was still one thing Kakashi wished to do, after having to wait almost two weeks for Iruka to make his reappearance.

Kakashi carefully freed his hand from Iruka’s grip; Iruka looked confused until Kakashi began moving, shuffling and separating what little contact they had, angling himself so he was more facing Iruka.

Iruka seemed to finally understand when he leaned in close.

“May I kiss you?” Kakashi asked, watching as Iruka’s eyes shifted down to stare at his lips. The desire in Iruka’s expression was plain as day.

Iruka swallowed, eyes darting back up to meet Kakashi’s gaze, and flicked his tongue out licking his lips. Kakashi’s eyes were immediately drawn to the smooth movement, tracing the shiny wet path Iruka’s tongue left in its wake.

Kakashi’s eyes slipped closed as Iruka leaned in and kissed him.

It was a tentative touch, a feather-light brush of lips against Kakashi’s. Iruka was slow and cautious in light of all that he had shared, seemingly afraid that Kakashi would hate him as soon as their lips met. Kakashi settled his mouth firmly against Iruka’s, sighing softly against Iruka’s lips. He silently prayed, hoping that Iruka might feel even a sliver of the emotions he was trying to communicate through their kiss: _ ‘I want this, please believe me’ _ and _ ‘I’ve never felt like this with anyone else, don’t leave me again.’ _

Iruka quickly melted into the kiss, reciprocating tenderly, and after what felt like an eternity his hands began to roam over Kakashi. They trailed up Kakashi’s bare arms and across the breadth of his shoulders, then back down his chest.

Kakashi curled an arm around Iruka, splaying a hand on the small of his back. He captured one of Iruka’s questing hands with his, pressing it tenderly against his chest right over his heart. There was no particular hunger in the kiss, nothing like the devouring exploration of their first, just a lazy thoroughness that left Kakashi dizzy with want. He longed to be closer to Iruka, and perhaps Iruka could read his thoughts—unexpectedly, Iruka straddled Kakashi’s legs and settled himself in Kakashi’s lap without breaking their kiss.

Kakashi parted his lips and a soft whine escaped Iruka’s throat as he accepted the offered invitation. Their kiss lost a little of its gentleness but suddenly gained depth and a sharp, sensual edge that left Kakashi a panting mess.

Sensing his weakness, Iruka’s hands slipped down and settled on Kakashi’s waist. He dipped his fingers shallowly into the waistband of Kakashi’s sweats, hooking his fingers under the hem of his shirt and pulling it free. Kakashi sucked in a sharp breath as Iruka snuck the rest of his hands beneath the cloth barrier separating them, bunching the shirt up as he slowly caressed Kakashi’s skin. A mirror of what Kakashi had once done to Iruka.

Kakashi broke the kiss and swore.

“I need_ —fuck_. Iruka, can we…” he stammered breathlessly, letting his forehead tip forward to rest against Iruka’s as he fought to collect himself. He marveled at how perfectly they fit together as he calmed his breathing.

Iruka remained silent as cupped Kakashi’s jaw, petting him soothingly as he waited for Kakashi to get the words out.

Kakashi opened his eyes as he leaned into Iruka’s hand, taking in Iruka’s pleased smile. “I need you, Iruka,” he simply said.

“I don’t want you to feel like you need to rush into this, Kakashi,” Iruka breathed, gingerly pecking the corner of Kakashi’s mouth. “I don’t want us to make rash decisions.”

Kakashi tilted his head, capturing Iruka’s retreating lips. Iruka surrendered easily, kissing Kakashi in earnest now, his nose bumping against Kakashi’s cheek.

Throughout Kakashi’s life, there were high probabilities that he was making the right choices, but none of his decisions were ever made with one-hundred percent certainty. There was always an edge of doubt to them, sharp and cruel, but Kakashi had already made up his mind days ago.

“It’s not a rash decision, Iruka,” Kakashi confessed as he stared imploringly into Iruka’s eyes. “I want this. I want _ you.” _

Iruka’s expression crumbled, as though Kakashi’s words had lifted a heavy, unknown weight off his shoulders.

He wrapped his arms tightly around Iruka, bringing the man flush against him.

“I’ve never wanted someone so badly before, Iruka, and I trust you. Take me to bed?” Kakashi grinned cheekily.

“Kakashi...” Iruka whispered, bringing his hands up to Kakashi’s face, holding him, staring into Kakashi’s eyes. Iruka looked so wrecked by Kakashi’s words, the thick emotion in Iruka’s voice was mirrored in his eyes.

Then Kakashi was being kissed deeply. It was charged with so much emotion that it left Kakashi in a breathless daze. Before he could come back to his senses, Iruka was hauling himself out of Kakashi’s lap. He bent down and effortlessly picked Kakashi up off the floor, cradling Kakashi in his arms and carrying him out of the living room and down the hall.

He was content letting Iruka carry him around. It was new and exciting, it had never happened while he was conscious. Kakashi looped his arms around Iruka’s shoulders and leaned tilting his head closer to Iruka’s face.

“So you know where the bedroom is, huh?” Kakashi teased, waggling his eyebrows suggestively as they crossed the threshold to Kakashi’s room.

Iruka smiled wickedly, mischief sparkling in his dark eyes, “What can I say? I’ve broken into your house often just to touch myself in your bed while thinking of us.”

Kakashi’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, really?”

“Of course not,” Iruka cackled as he dumped Kakashi unceremoniously down onto his bed. “Oh damn, you should have seen your face!”

“You’re mean,” Kakashi pouted, flopping petulantly across his bed. That would have been exciting news had it been true. Something so ridiculous that it would have been perfect for Icha Icha. _ Missed opportunities, _ Kakashi silently mourned.

“Then let me make it up to you,” Iruka said in a husky voice as he stared down at Kakashi. He untucked his shirt and dragged it up slowly—drawing attention to the skin that was being revealed—and over his head.

Kakashi heaved himself up on an elbow to watch, mouth going dry at the sight of toned muscles flexing beneath beautiful tanned skin. Iruka was strangely unmarred too, even a run of the mill civilian had more scars than Iruka, who’s only visible scar so far was the one running over his nose.

The bed dipped as Iruka climbed onto it and over Kakashi, settling himself over Kakashi’s hips. Iruka leaned down, draping himself across Kakashi, and began slowly littering his face with quick kisses.

Kakashi’s hands settled on Iruka. He reveled in the skin on skin contact, enjoying the feel of solid muscles under his hand. It was so much better than looking, and Iruka seemed to agree based on the quiet, content noises he was making.

“You better make it good,” Kakashi sighed breathily as Iruka moved down to nuzzle his neck.

Iruka hummed, placing lingering kisses against Kakashi’s pulse point as he ground down onto Kakashi. Kakashi whimpered and bucked up into Iruka, chasing that covetable friction. His hands slid up and around Iruka’s chest to his back.

Kakashi’s breath hitched as the fingers of his right hand dipped into the shallow, smooth indentations of a scar spread out along Iruka’s back. Despite the smoothness of the healed skin, the ridges of the indentations felt a little jagged, as though his skin had been ripped apart. The old wound ran parallel to his spine, riding so close to it that Kakashi couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if the blades had fallen an inch or so to Iruka’s right.

Could Iruka survive such an injury, even with his self-regenerating capabilities?

Kakashi shuddered in disgust.

He had heard about how Iruka took a fuuma shuriken to the back for Naruto, but Kakashi had never seen the aftermath. Back then, he was more interested in the story than he was in Iruka.

Kakashi lightly traced the scar and Iruka buried his face into his neck, exhaling harshly, quivering beneath his touch.

“You could have healed this, and the one on your face. Just like how you healed your arm.” Kakashi muttered unhappily.

Iruka propped himself up on his forearms and looked down at Kakashi, one of his hands slowly combed through Kakashi’s hair.

“I could have,” Iruka acknowledged softly. “But I keep them as reminders.”

“Of?”

“That I can’t trust everyone,” Iruka replied, smiling sadly.

Kakashi splayed his hand over the scar on Iruka’s back.

“Then I’ll make sure I’m worthy of your trust then, Iruka,” Kakashi promised leaning up to kiss Iruka sweetly.

Iruka rewarded Kakashi’s saccharine words by deepening the kiss and resuming the slow, intoxicating grind of their cocks. Kakashi’s hands drifted further down, settling on Iruka’s ass, pulling him tighter against him.

“Y-you don’t have to prove anything to me, Kakashi,” Iruka stuttered.

“I’d say you deserve it and_ more,” _ Kakashi told him as he leaned up to suck a mark into the skin of Iruka’s throat.

“Shirt off,” Iruka commanded and pressed one final kiss to Kakashi’s lips before he leaned back.

Kakashi quickly sat up and tugged his shirt up, only for him to get stuck in it in his haste. Fuck, he was making a fool out of himself.

Iruka came to the rescue, carefully adjusting the shirt where it trapped Kakashi’s shoulder. He had lost his headband in the scuffle and his hair fell around his face in a riotous mess once he was finally freed of his cloth prison. With the way Iruka was staring at him, his idiocy didn’t fuck everything up for him.

Iruka was back on him—he pushed him down into the bed while he touched, kissed, licked, and sucked at every inch of Kakashi’s bare skin that he could, but Iruka never bit him. Admittedly, Kakashi was a little disappointed by the lack of teeth and the stinging pleasure the sensation of biting offered, but he understood how Iruka felt about it. They would have that conversation another night. Iruka was doing a fantastic job of taking him apart without it.

Iruka took special care to trace each scar visible to him on Kakashi’s torso with his tongue, occasionally stopping off at an excited nipple to play with it. For each sensitive spot Iruka found, Kakashi arched up into Iruka needily and in turn, Iruka would reward him with more kisses. It was a never-ending circle of pleasure.

Iruka’s hand danced down Kakashi’s stomach and snuck underneath the waistband of Kakashi’s pants.

“Fuck,” Kakashi moaned as Iruka’s fingers wrapped around his cock, giving it a firm tug. He pushed his cock up into the ring of Iruka’s fingers.

“The noises you make are amazing,” Iruka whispered, his warm breath ghosting over Kakashi’s ear before giving it a teasing lick. He kissed up along Kakashi’s jaw and covered Kakashi’s mouth with his own. 

Iruka set a steady and controlled pace as he jerked Kakashi off, swallowing all of Kakashi’s choked gasps and sobs. He slowly built Kakashi up with sure and teasing strokes, circling the head of Kakashi’s dick with his thumb. Kakashi twisted his hands into the blankets on the bed, and his legs twitched with each pass over the head of his cock.

“Iruka, don’t stop._ Please!” _ Kakashi whined as Iruka peeled himself off him. He climbed off the bed and loomed over Kakashi seductively.

After a moment of just staring at Kakashi, taking in the sight of him, he leaned over and stripped off Kakashi’s sweats and underwear in one swift movement, leaving him completely naked. Iruka’s eyes were hooded with lust, and Kakashi could have sworn Iruka was oozing fucking intent. He was sure such a thing didn’t exist, but it sure as hell did now.

Well, if Iruka was just going to stand there and watch, well, he did give Kakashi a pretty _fantastic_ idea…

Kakashi took himself in hand, eyes screwing shut as he began stroking his cock.

He moved with well-practiced motions, and as he did, he imagined that it was Iruka twisting his wrist just so on the upstrokes, rubbing his thumb through the precum leaking from the head of his cock and smearing it around the flushed, sensitive skin. Kakashi cupped his sack with his other hand, rolling his balls gently in his palm with his fingers. He thought of Iruka teasingly mouthing at them, lapping at them with his tongue, sucking each one into his mouth.

As Kakashi’s mind wandered, so did his hand. He remembered how amazing it felt to have Iruka play with his nipples—they were so sensitive under his attention. Kakashi could probably come just from that alone.

_ “Iruka,” _ Kakashi groaned long and dirty as he pinched a nipple between his fingers, punctuating the pleasurable abuse with slow, teasing strokes of his cock, imagining it was Iruka worshipping them.

He rolled the nub firmly between the pads of his fingers, the sharp pleasure making his body convulse in ecstasy. He gingerly soothed a finger over the abused nipple then moved his hand back down. He slid his fingers over his chest and stomach, down the valley of his groin and below his balls to his asshole.

Kakashi gasped wordlessly, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip as he ran his fingers over the puckered entrance, continuing to jerk himself off. He wanted Iruka’s fingers there, rubbing up against him, coaxing him open with tender encouragements, his cock pushing into him. He wanted _ Iruka. _

His pleasure was quickly mounting into orgasm. It wouldn’t be long now.

Kakashi cracked his eyes open, looking up at Iruka. The other man’s skin was flushed, and he was tense, even as he palmed the front of his pants.

Iruka muttered a curse under his breath. “Do you have condoms and lube?” he asked, his voice hoarse with arousal, “I want to fuck you.”

“I have lube… Probably,” Kakashi moaned, reluctantly pulling his hand away from his cock. He didn’t want to climax without Iruka involved. “Condoms, though? Are you trying to keep me from catching something, Iruka?” he teased.

“I'm immune to human afflictions Kakashi, and sex is messy,” Iruka stated matter of factly. After a moment he wrinkled his nose and slowly added, “Are you trying to ask me if I can turn you into a vampire with my dick?”

Kakashi sobered up immediately. He did not think about the way his words could be construed. He probably shouldn’t have even said it to begin with, but it was too late to take them back now.

“Uh, no?” Kakashi winced. Iruka’s unexpected bluntness catching him off guard made his reply sound more like an awkward question rather than a denial. Although, and he wasn’t going to say it out loud, he _was_ genuinely curious. “I haven’t bought condoms in a few years, but the lube is in the nightstand.”

Iruka shook his head and laughed at him. He took a step toward the table and reached out, pulling open the drawer.

“I really don’t want to know where you got that idea, Kakashi. And for the record, I don’t sleep in a coffin,” he said, producing the lube after a couple of seconds of rummaging around in the drawer.

“Happy to hear it, because I can’t imagine doing this in a coffin is very comfortable...or sexy for that matter.”

“I mean, I could always get one since, apparently, you have a kink for terrible vampire stories,” Iruka threatened jokingly. He tossed the bottle of lube on the bed next to Kakashi and fiddled with the catch of his pants.

Kakashi, taking the bait, scoffed, “It’s not a kink!”

Iruka smirked at him, looking quite smug getting the reaction he wanted. Kakashi would have argued the topic further, but Iruka hooked his fingers on the band of his pants lowered them slowly down his hips.

The man was going to be the death of him.

“You promised to make it up to me,” he complained.

“I did,” Iruka said, crawling back on the bed and laying next to Kakashi, flat on his back, “And I will. Come here.”

Iruka prodded and pulled at Kakashi, and Kakashi went willingly. He let Iruka situate him how he wanted, which ended with him straddling Iruka’s thighs, hands braced against the mattress on either side of Iruka. At some point in his maneuvering, Iruka had pulled the hair tie from his hair, allowing beautiful dark hair to sprawl and fan out around him. Kakashi’s breath hitched—Iruka was _gorgeous. _

Iruka picked the bottle of lube up and popped the lid, tilting it to one side, gesturing for Kakashi to bring his hand over.

“Touch me, Kakashi,” Iruka told him.

“You don’t want to….?”

Kakashi wouldn’t have minded not using a condom. He was clean, and Iruka just admitted to being immune to things humans could catch a short while ago. And washing a load of laundry was hardly a costly price to pay for making love.

Iruka shook his head, “This is fine for now.”

“Okay.”

Kakashi held his hand out and Iruka squeezed the bottle’s contents into his hand.

The lube was cool against his overheated skin and made them shiver as he spread the lube between them. They both moaned loudly as Kakashi wrapped his hand around their cocks, finally bringing them together, and began slowly stroking them. Iruka gasped loudly, clutching at Kakashi’s thighs and kneading them.

Ever the attentive shinobi, Kakashi observed every movement Iruka made as he writhed under Kakashi’s touch, cataloged every noise, loud or quiet, that escaped Iruka’s parted lips.

Iruka lifted his hips, untroubled by the weight settled on him, pushing his cock up into the vice of Kakashi’s fingers as he softly whispered Kakashi’s name.

What he wouldn’t give to have Iruka pinning him against a flat surface and fucking him into it, though. Iruka’s powerful movements driving his cock into him, the slide against his prostate a sweet, addicting agony Kakashi would gladly kill to experience over and over again.

“T-tighter,” Iruka begged, words stumbling on a choked moan.

Kakashi adjusted his grip then leaned down to kiss Iruka, swallowing Iruka’s next whine as he slid his hips upwards against Iruka. Iruka snaked a hand up around Kakashi’s waist and dug his fingers into the base of Kakashi’s spine, holding him closer.

“How’s that?” Kakashi panted against Iruka’s lips.

“Amazing,” he replied, breathing heavily, “Kakashi, I’m close.”

“Then come. I’ve got you,” Kakashi murmured.

Kakashi was the first to come, and as the warmth of his release spread over his fingers, he buried his face into the juncture of Iruka’s neck, sucking another mark into his soft skin.

“Kakashi!” Iruka cried out as Kakashi’s fingers pulled Iruka’s orgasm from him sweetly.

They caught their breath together, and as Kakashi came down from his post-orgasm euphoria, he rolled off Iruka and laid next to him.

Fuck, that was amazing. It was a wonder that he didn’t melt into the bed.

Iruka began to move. Kakashi rolled his head to the side and watched lazily as Iruka sat up and leaned over the bed to snatch up one of the discarded shirts off the floor. He first wiped himself off, then tended to Kakashi. That was nice. He felt so boneless and comfortable, he’d stay here feeling like this forever if he had the chance. Kakashi felt even better when Iruka rejoined him on the bed.

Iruka stretched out next to Kakashi, then shifted onto his side to face him. He propped his head upon his hand and stared down at Kakashi fondly.

“Is this how you imagined us together?” Kakashi yawned, his eyelids drooping sleepily. He fought to keep them open, allow himself the opportunity to stare at Iruka, but between the day’s events and the fantastic sex, exhaustion was quickly catching up with him.

Iruka chuckled and rested his hand on Kakashi’s chest doodling invisible shapes into his cooling skin. “Not exactly, but it was far better than anything I’ve ever dreamt up,” he admitted.

“I’m just sorry it took so long for it to happen,” Kakashi mumbled, his eyes finally slipping shut. “We could have been doing this for years.”

“Better late than never.”

“And as much as I enjoyed tonight, you owe me a good fucking. Preferably over a desk. Tomorrow for sure.” Kakashi grinned.

Iruka shook with laughter. Kakashi felt the vibrations of it as Iruka pressed his face into his shoulder.

“You’re terrible. Your ANBU guard is going to _hate_ us,” Iruka continued to giggle, kissing Kakashi.

Kakashi cracked an eye open and leered at Iruka, “That’s not a no.”

“It’s a firm maybe,” Iruka said, giving him a pointed look. “I’ll think about it.”

Kakashi’s eyes fell closed again, his entire body going lax and his awareness of his surroundings becoming less focused. He was vaguely aware of being situated on the bed and under the blankets. Iruka’s warm body melded against his back, strong arms protectively cocooned Kakashi, cuddling him close.

There was faint pressure of lips on the back of his neck and a murmured ‘I love you’.

Kakashi’s last thoughts before sleep took him were of feeling safe and loved.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end has finally come...

**1 Year Later**

*****

Early morning light spilled into the room through the blinds, scattering deep orange streaks across every surface that it touched. They spread across Kakashi’s pale skin like thin lines of fire.

Iruka was laying on his side facing Kakashi, head propped up on a hand, watching his boyfriend of one year sleeping deeply. It was still early for them, at least two hours, according to the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand.

He reached out and settled his hand upon Kakashi’s bare chest.

Iruka contented himself with watching the rise and fall of Kakashi’s chest, and the feeling of the slow, steady heartbeat beneath his palm. He knew he was overly sentimental for a shinobi, and probably for a vampire, but he refused to change his ways.

It amazed him still that he and Kakashi were together. It felt just like yesterday that Kakashi had confronted him about being a vampire.

He couldn’t believe it had been a year already.

Kakashi snuffled softly, shifting under the covers, coming out of his deep slumber. He rolled his head towards Iruka, his eyelids fluttered open revealing his unfocused, sleepy eyes. Kakashi blinked a couple of times, then a smile spread across his lips as he looked up at Iruka.

“Hey,” Kakashi said groggily, voice rough from sleep.

Iruka reached up with his free hand and began combing his fingers through Kakashi’s hair, smiling down at him. “Hey.”

“Wha—” Kakashi yawned, “What time is it?”

“It’s still early. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

Kakashi turned over to his side and snuggled up closer to Iruka, “What if I don’t want to go back to sleep?” he asked seductively, trailing kisses across Iruka’s collar bones.

Iruka chuckled. He tightened his hold of Kakashi’s hair, tugging gently and pulling a breathy groan from Kakashi. Iruka pulled Kakashi’s hair until he could look at his boyfriend in the eyes again.

“Well, that’s rude. Don’t I get a ‘good morning Iruka, I love you. Happy anniversary!’ first?” Iruka pouted.

A lecherous expression overcame Kakashi’s expression. He leaned in, Iruka relinquished his hold on Kakashi’s hair, and murmured against Iruka’s lips, “Good morning, Iruka.” Kakashi kissed him. “I love you. what did you get me for our anniversary.”

Iruka laughed, pressing a messy, mirthful kiss against Kakashi’s lips.

“Good morning, and I love you too,” Iruka replied, “What do you want?”

Kakashi suddenly became more serious. He wrapped Iruka up in his arms and pulled him close, kissing Iruka deeply, the way that drove him crazy and threw him for dizzy loops. Kissing Kakashi was the single most amazing thing that Iruka had ever experienced. The kisses had only gotten better over the months they’d been together.

Iruka kissed him back, mirroring all the love and affection being channeled through contact.

He half-heartedly tried to break the kiss, even as they parted he went back for seconds and thirds, nothing but gentle pecks and soft smiles. Kakashi was an addiction Iruka hoped he would never be rid of. But he genuinely would like to know what Kakashi wanted, it wasn’t the official day they got together but were it not for that night and that kiss Iruka would have never known he had a chance with the man he’d been in love with for years.

Iruka bowed his head, avoiding another kiss from Kakashi, directing kiss to his forehead instead.

“You never told me what you wanted,” Iruka murmured, his hands sliding down to rest on Kakashi’s chest.

“I want to be with you forever, Iruka,” Kakashi whispered, almost as if it were a secret.

Iruka’s breath hitched, eyes widening in surprise.

Were he just a regular human, Iruka would have assumed Kakashi was asking to simply get married. Iruka would have said yes without a second thought.

Yet Iruka knew what Kakashi was asking.

“Kakashi, do you know what you're asking?” Iruka asked softly. He did his best to keep his tone light and voice steady, but he was sure his eyes were giving him away as he stared into Kakashi’s—there were only certainty and love glinting back at Iruka.

Iruka and Kakashi rarely talked about how vampires could be made, and Iruka always answered the questions vaguely. The only sure thing he knew that Kakashi knew was vampires _could _be made the normal human way. Iruka had never told, never even hinted at, how humans could be turned. There were no texts that Kakashi could read. Vampires, their culture, their customs, their cities were a closely guarded secret.

Yet Kakashi seemed to know what he was asking, despite not knowing.

Iruka loved Kakashi, and although he was sure Kakashi felt the same, there would always be that uncertainty hiding underneath it all. He didn’t want this to change their relationship, but Kakashi changing would change everything.

Iruka was afraid.

“I know. I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it, Iruka.” Kakashi replied as he drew comforting shapes into the bare skin of Iruka's hip.

Iruka shuddered and his fingers pressed against Kakashi.

“You won't die for a long time. There are very few things in this world that can kill a vampire. We can sustain great wounds that would have killed us otherwise, but we always regenerate. We will live hundreds of years, hardly aging as we watch the people we care for grow old and die. For all its boons, this existence is a curse and I would not willingly subject you to it.” Iruka gravely explained.

Kakashi smiled at him.

“You don't honestly believe that I'd let you suffer that existence alone, do you?” Kakashi asked. He leaned in and rubbed his nose slowly and soothingly against Iruka’s. “I don't care about all the bells and whistles Iruka, because there's only one thing that I want more than superpowers—and that's to spend eternity with you.”

Iruka’s eyes welled with tears. He leaned forward and kissed Kakashi deeply, pouring all his emotions into it. Kakashi kissed him back, matching his fervor and holding him tightly.

Kakashi was essentially asking him to marry him.

“That was sweet, Kakashi, but really? Is that why you want to become a vampire? For superpowers?” Iruka teased as they broke their kiss. Iruka’s lips twitched as he struggled to keep the smile off his face, even as Kakashi’s grinned brightly at him.

“Listen, I might have become a chuunin at age six, but I still wanted to be a superhero like all the rest of the kids my age," Kakashi said whimsically. "We could be a superhero couple! You could be the dark and mysterious hero kicking crime in the ass, and I could be your hot sidekick. It'll be great!”

Iruka hit him in the face with a pillow and muffled laughter filled their bedroom.

Iruka couldn’t imagine being separated from Kakashi, especially now after finally getting to know the man. This life was difficult, but living without Kakashi would be impossible.

Kakashi pulled the pillow off his face and threw it on the bed behind Iruka.

“I meant it, Iruka. I love you too much to let you go, or to let you be alone.” Kakashi insisted seriously.

“It won’t happen now,” Iruka’s said with a shaky breath. “But we’ll talk about it,” he promised.

Kakashi leaned in, kissing him tenderly, “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

**Bonus (sometime in the distant future):**

Iruka threw the morning paper down harshly on the table in front of Kakashi, who was reading Icha Icha and drinking his morning coffee, a habit he never gave up even after turning.

“I thought I told you to use some discretion,” Iruka growled.

Kakashi set his mug down and gingerly put his old and weathered copy of _ Icha Icha Paradise _down on top of the paper.

“I did. Ir—” Kakashi began to say.

“—Bullshit, Kakashi!” Iruka interrupted him, pointing angrily down at the copy of _ Konoha Post_. “You posed for the fucking paper!”

**KONOHA HAS FINALLY PUT A NAME TO ITS MASKED DEFENDER! MEET WHITE WOLF!**

Beneath the obnoxious headline was a colored photo of Kakashi, posing for the camera. He wore a modified ANBU uniform from back when Konoha had still used them; it was all shades of grey and white. Kakashi even had a replica of his old ANBU mask; the mask itself was bone-white, but its markings were black and it was far more menacing looking with its snarling mouth full of porcelain teeth.

Kakashi smiled his smug, toothy smile. It made Iruka want to punch him because it always meant he was about to say something really fucking stupid.

“You could always join me, Iruka. You could be _ Batman.” _He said, quirking an eyebrow.

“I want a divorce,” Iruka bit out.

Kakashi’s smile widened and he got up out of his chair, circled the table and wrapped himself around Iruka.

No, Iruka would not fall for Kakashi’s charms. 

_ The Moron is in trouble. _

Kakashi nuzzled at his neck, just below his jaw, pressing kisses against his skin.

_ Don’t. Iruka. Do not let him off the hook. _

“Even after all these years, seeing you angry is such a turn on,” Kakashi breathed, grinding up against Iruka.

Fuck, he was getting hard. _ Goddamnit. _

“You’re lucky I love you,” Iruka moaned, bucking his hips into Kakashi’s. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this. You will be punished.”

“You better make it good then, Iruka.”

**THE END!**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THAT'S IT! IT'S FINISHED!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented throughout my posting this fic. It was a joy to read the reactions! Special thanks ladyxdaydream and MagnusTesla for their support, I really _really_ appreciate it!
> 
> As for the "deleted scenes" I will be posting them when I can as their own fic and part of a series so I can mark the main fic off as complete! They won't be out right away because I want to start on a new project (a scifi kakairu brought forth by naruto scifi week). I also want to polish the scenes before posting them, they are a little messy.


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